Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
1. A message server for processing outgoing and incoming electronic messages, comprising: a transmission facility for sending electronic messages; a receiving facility for receiving electronic messages; a notification facility for sending a notification message about the receipt of electronic messages; an allocation means for allocating an instruction to an electronic message which has been sent or is to be sent, wherein the instruction enables provision of the sending of a notification message on the receipt of an incoming reply message to the sent electronic message; and a checking facility for checking incoming electronic messages to determine whether an incoming electronic message is a reply message to a previously sent electronic message which is equipped with an instruction, and wherein the notification facility sends a notification message in the event of a positive result by the checking facility that the incoming electronic message is a reply message to a previously sent electronic message which is equipped with an instruction.
2. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the first electronic message is an email message.
3. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the checking facility compares at least a portion of the subject line of the sent electronic message with at least a portion of the subject line of the received electronic message.
4. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the checking facility compares at least one addressee of the sent electronic message with a sender entry of the received electronic message.
5. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the checking facility compares at least a portion of a body text of the sent electronic message with at least a portion of a body text of the received electronic message.
6. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the instruction includes a destination address for the notification message.
7. The message server as claimed in claim 6 , wherein the destination address for the notification is different than an address of a sender of the sent electronic message.
8. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the notification message is an electronic real-time message.
9. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the instruction includes information to generate a phone call to a user as a notification message.
10. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the instruction includes information to send a text-based message to a user as a notification message.
11. The message server as claimed in claim 10 , wherein the text-based message is an SMS message or an email message.
12. The message server as claimed in claim 11 , wherein the notification message includes at least a portion of a subject line of the reply message.
13. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the notification message includes at least a portion of a body text of the reply message.
14. The message server as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the message server is an email server or a unified messaging system.
15. A method for notification of a user about the receipt of a reply electronic message, comprising: creating an electronic message; allocating, to the created electronic message, an instruction for notification about a future incoming reply message; sending the created electronic message, the sent electronic message including the instruction; receiving an electronic message; checking the received electronic message to determine whether it is a reply message to the sent electronic message which included the instruction; and if the result of the check is positive, sending a notification message to a user that the received electronic message is a reply message to the previously sent electronic message which is equipped with the instruction.
16. The method as claimed in claim 15 , wherein the instruction includes a time of day information such that the notification message is sent to different addresses based on the time of day.
17. The method as claimed in claim 15 , wherein the instruction includes information to generate a phone call or to send a text-based message to an address of the user.
Unknown
February 7, 2012
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